“What did I tell you?” he demands.
“About what?” I ask, breathless.
“Provoking me.”
“I’m not—I wasn’t—now, let’s talk this over!”
“Sure,” he says easily, tipping his lap in such a way that I somehow lose my grip and flail helplessly about, as if he’s planned this. “You can talk in between your little squeals and shouts as I spank you.”
I’m so wet between my legs at this point I’m afraid he’ll notice my damp knickers. Excitement skates through me, even as my cheeks flush pink from embarrassment.
“Lachlan!”
“Fiona!”
I let out a little whimper, just before his palm slams against the fullest part of my backside. Oh, hell does it hurt, but as soon as his firm palm connects with my skin, a flare of heated arousal licks at my core, and my heart thunders in my chest.
“Now,” he says in that stern, sexy voice of his. “Let’s make sure we know who’s in charge here.”
“Ah, yes,” I say helplessly, scissoring my feet as a second firm slap to the arse takes my breath away. “You are! I do know this, believe it or not, and never did quite—ow!”
“Mhm.”
“Never thought otherwise!” I pant.
“And yet you still think it smart to tease me, when being in your presence damn near dissolves my resolve?”
“It does?”
He smacks his palm harder and punctuates each word with searing, punishing swats.
“Every. Damn. Time.”
“I-I didn’t know that,” I say, which is the truth, and he pauses. When he rests his huge palm across my heated arse, I close my eyes against the rush of heady arousal that swallows me whole. He runs his palm over my cotton panties, and I realize he’s hard beneath me.
I’m torn between wanting to sing with joy and cry with despair. Why does he fight me so?
He’s muttering under his breath in guttural, broken Gaelic, words I haven’t heard in years, curses and pleas.
“What?” I whisper, still drowning in arousal and desire and wild emotion.
“I can tell how aroused that made you,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “And bloody hell, woman…” his voice trails off and he runs his palm over my bottom again. Quietly, wordlessly, ever so slightly, I part my legs.
His entire body freezes.
“Fiona.”
I close my eyes and open my mouth to speak, but I can’t. I’m skin to skin with the man that I love with my whole being. He flew here on a private jet to ensure my safety. Right this very minute, I can feel his erection beneath my belly, proving that I’m no nameless child to him but a woman.
His woman.
“We’re miles from home,” I finally say brokenly. “No one will ever know.”
I’d give him everything, fucking everything, and he knows it.
As if soothing his own needs, he strokes my arse again, rubbing out the sting of the spanking he just delivered. He groans, and lowers his fingers to my inner thighs.
“Part your legs,” he orders in a hoarse whisper. I’m dizzy and hot, but somehow manage to obey. I’m trembling when I open my legs.
He curses under his breath in Gaelic again. I feel his hot fingers on my inner thighs, and my core aches to be touched, to feel the blessed rush of release. To somehow be connected more intimately with him.
My breath comes to a stuttering halt when he strokes his finger between my legs. Such a light touch, it’s barely more than a whisper of a kiss, gliding along the tiny scrap of fabric that separates me from him. I’m panting, I want him so badly.
“Is this what you need, sweet girl?” he says in a voice I don’t recognize, hoarse with lust.
“Mmm,” I manage to squeak out. “Please, Lachlan.”
He’s circling against the fabric, putting the gentlest touch of pressure right there. I can’t breathe or speak or move. My bottom throbs from the spanking he gave me, my heart hammers in my chest, but my pulse is centered straight between my legs.
“And what would I find?” he asks in a throaty whisper. “If I were to move these knickers aside?”
I gasp when I feel him drag his fingertip along the edge of fabric.
“Are you wet, sweet girl? Are you eager for me to touch you?”
I open my mouth, but it’s hard to talk. My tongue’s too big for my mouth or something, because the only thing I can say is a garbled mess of nonsense. His deep, throaty chuckle makes me smile, and I manage a breathy, “Yes, fucking yes.”
“Christ,” he says, his voice at once soothing and heated. “As if I could ever say no when you ask me like that.”
Time freezes when he moves the little piece of fabric aside. Blood pounds in my ears, and I’m grabbing the blanket in front of me so hard my fingers ache, but then there’s nothing but a chasm of deep, perfect bliss, when he touches me.
Oh, sweet Jesus, it’s utterly divine. It’s like he’s reading my mind, stroking me just there, with just the right amount of pressure, as if he knows what I need him to do—oh, God.
“Yes,” I whisper, rocking my hips to welcome his touch. “Oh God. Ohhhh,” my voice is choked and my breathing hitched, with one more touch I’m going to fly headfirst into the abyss.
He removes his fingers for a moment, and my breath freezes when he teases his finger along the inside of my thigh. “So perfect,” he says as if in admiration. “Fiona. You’re so beautiful.”
I bask in his words, his nearness and my vulnerability, even though I’m crazy with need and craving his touch again. He bends, and I feel his lips brush my skin where the t-shirt’s fallen to the side. To my shock, I feel his tongue next, warm and sensual. He drags it along my lower back as if savoring the taste of me, just before his fingers return to where I ache for him.
With the first stroke, I fly apart. My head arches and my breathing’s choked and strained. Spasms of ecstasy rope through my body, and I swear every nerve ending from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair alights. He knows just how to continue stroking me, just what I need to ride the bliss, and he gives it all to me until every morsel of pleasure’s extracted. I’m panting, still holding onto the bed, when he turns me around and cradles me in his arms.
I can’t believe this is him, that he’s here in the flesh. That he’s holding me to his chest, kissing me as if he’s paying homage, across my cheeks, to my nose, and finally, finally, to my mouth, where I long to taste him.
I sigh and lose myself to his kiss. For such a strong, stern man his lips are so soft, his touch so gentle. I’ve kissed boys before, but not many, and certainly none knew how to make it enjoyable. This is something else altogether.
This is a silent declaration that we don’t care what will happen. We’re meant to be together. This is a silent joining of our wills, our fears, and our hopes.
This is confirmation that Lachlan McCarthy belongs to me as much as I to him. We kiss until I can’t breathe, until I’m fully submerged in this connection, and the rapid beating of my heart slows.
When he pulls away, he smiles at me in that sexy way of his, a corner of his lips quirking while his eyes focus on mine with intensity so fierce, I can’t look away.